5 Things You Can Do This Weekend

In 2006, Tesco made £2.2 billion in profits. With that sort of cash, they can afford to spend huge amounts to hire people, consultants and agencies to help them put across positive messages about their plans to build an edge of centre store in St. Albans.

But that is also their greatest weakness - no matter how dedicated their people are to their jobs, it's nothing when compared to strength of feeling and motivation held by a community where homes, local businesses and livelihoods are under threat.

With this in mind, we've come up with a list of 5 things you and your family can do this weekend to help ensure that Tesco's current plans, plans which many local people feel are inappropriate for St. Albans, are properly scrutinised and opposed:

1. Talk to a neighbour or friend about the Tesco development. Tell them about this website and explain any objections you have to Tesco's plan.

2. Do at least some of your grocery shopping at St. Albans 1000 year old market and, as you do, speak with market stall holders about the plans. Make sure you explain that an edge of centre supermarket might keep people from coming into the centre at all on market days and that that fact the store is half a mile or more away is exactly why it is so threatening to their livelihoods. Last week we spoke with three stall holders and, much to our surprise, none of them had heard a thing about Tesco's plans or exhibit.

3. Stop by a local merchant's shop in the area close to the Evershed site and speak with the proprietor about the plans. There are lots of shops to choose from, all of which could be impacted by a Tesco nearby:

* Grapeland (wine) and Bloom (flowers) on Victoria Street
* The Italian (and Polish) grocery on Lattimore Road
* The wine and beer store next to Dominos on London Road
* Londis or other news agents on London Road and on Victoria Steet near the railway station

(Please note: None of the above shops is necessarily for or against our campaign, nor do they necessarily know about Tesco's plans.)

4. Send a letter to the Herts Advertiser or St. Albans Observer to voice your opinion [click the names of each paper will take you directly to the letters submission page]. You may also want to send a copy of your letter to your elected reprsentative - links are provided on the right side of this page.

5. Take some digital photos and email them to this website. We're looking for photos of homes and other buildigns that will be lost of Tesco goes ahead with their plans, street scenes that will be altered, businesses that could be affected - just about anything that tells the story of what you think could be changed, ruined, or lost if Tesco's plans for our community are allowed to go ahead. You can email the best of your photos to tescocampaign@yahoo.co.uk or, if you already use the photosharing website flickr, simply upload your images there and tag them with tescocampaign (all one word).